Town marshal Will Kane (Gary Cooper) is planning to retire and live happily with his new wife Amy (Grace Kelly), two sure signs of impending doom. On his last day the whole town learns that Frank Miller (no, not that one), a criminal Will had arrested, will arrive on the noon train with his gang, looking for revenge. Will seeks support from the townsfolk, but none of them will stand with him, not even his deputy. Amy, a pacifist, urges him to leave, but he refuses, choosing to fight Frank alone.

High Noon was written by Carl Foreman, while he was under investigation by the House Un-American Activities Committee, and he was subsequently blacklisted. The film can be seen as a parable about US society in general, and US intellectuals in particular, abandoning those summoned to appear before the committee.

This film provides examples of:

Bittersweet Ending: Will was able to defeat Miller but departs by throwing down his badge without a word, disillusioned by the townspeople's cowardice. The townspeople are now left without anyone defending them and are too cowardly to take the mantle.

Bloodless Carnage: Used inconsistently: a fistfight leaves Kane covered in blood, but people who're shot just fall over.

Children Are Innocent: The children dismissed from the church aren't the least bit upset about Miller's impending return, which they've just heard about, and are content to cheerfully play around. (It's possible they don't really know who he is, though.)

Completely Different Title: Subjected to many of these. "The Train Will Whistle Three Times" in France and Portugal, "Kill or Die" in Brazil, "The Threat" in Romania, "Alone Against Danger" in Spain, "At the Assigned Time" in Latin America", "Sheriff" in Norway...

Cowboys and Indians: Kane runs into kids who imitate the battle between him and Miller, with him shot to death.

Crapsack World: Hadleyville. Marshal Kane ask the town's help for stopping a returning villain and his gang. Only a 14-year-old, a half blind old man and his pacifist wife tried to help him. His deputy wanted to help... but only to get Kane to appoint him as the next marshal. Lampshaded by...

The Judge: "This is just a dirty little village in the middle of nowhere. Nothing that happens here is really important. Now get out."

Deliberately Monochrome: While it doesn’t hurt that color wasn’t in vogue for serious/art films at the time, the black-and-white color schemes are suggestive of a good-vs.-evil conflict in a morally-complex story. The photography was intended to look 19th-century, and especially intended to resemble the solemn palettes from photography of the Civil War. When the idea of colorizing black and white films turned to High Noon, Word of God was, in essence, “No thank you.”

Divided We Fall: Will's deputy refuses to help him unless Will agrees to him being the next marshal.

Light Is Not Good: Frank Miller dresses in white in contrasting his goons wearing black.

Lock and Load Montage: Subverted. Two minutes before he faces Frank Miller alone at noon, Kane sits down in his office and begins preparing by writing his will. Enter Dimitri Tiomkin's score and a montage of Kane at his desk, the omnipresent clock, Amy and Helen in the hotel, Miller's goons at the depot, and pretty much everybody else in the whole town at the saloon or church.

Subverted. Amy vows not to support or help her husband fight the thugs, but ultimately she is the only person to help him fight. She shoots a bad guy and is even able to break free of Miller's hold so her husband can shoot him.

Played straight by many of the female townspeople. Some seem disgusted at their husbands' refusal to help Kane, but do nothing themselves.

Politically Correct History: It's typical for a lot of Westerns to gloss over or stereotype Hispanic characters, but this film averts it. Helen faces prejudice over her ethnicity, and is only able to help run a store by being a silent partner. The other owner of the store refuses to be seen with her in public.

Reality Subtext: The film is popularly read as a slam against McCarthyism. During the making of the film, the screenwriter Carl Foreman was blacklisted from Hollywood for his association with Communism. At the time, Hollywood was divided on whether to join together to resist McCarthyism or to testify against their fellows. Kane's disgust over being abandoned by his community to face the Villain with Good Publicity alone mirrors what Foreman must have felt.

When Kane first hears that Miller is coming, the people around him urge to escape. He grabs his wife and a wagon and get out of town. He stops when he realises that he's panicking; he doesn't even have his guns with him. On returning to the town he finds the judge calmly packing up his horse to leave town, being aware from prior experience that the townspeople will not help Kane.

Helen Ramírez sells her part in the store at a very disadvantaged deal and immediately leaves the town. She knows that it doesn’t matter Kane wins or loses against Frank Miller, the town will not help him and either way they will lose the only man who defied the Crapsack World they live in. She takes substantially less money that she is due because Haydleville is doomed by their Meek Townsmen inhabitants, and the guy who buys the store will be stuck with a store in a Ghost Town.

Kane pulls this on the townspeople at the end; when they emerge after all the fighting's done, he tosses his badge into the dirt and walks out on the lot of them.

Throw It In: When Miller's train is coming in, the smoke is very black. This was not intentional but because of a problem with the train coming in too quickly and it almost crashing, it produced that effect.

Undertaker: On hearing Kane is going to stay and fight Frank Miller, a store owner eagerly tells his carpenter to start making up several coffins, as no matter who wins there will be a demand. He's embarrassed when Kane comes round as the carpenter is banging away in the back, and discretely tries to get him to stop. Kane is unimpressed, and sarcastically says he'll leave them to get on with their coffin-making.

Villain with Good Publicity: Miller's thug Pierce is welcomed as a hero by the saloon rats of the town. Some people assert that Miller isn't a villain, he's just involved in a personal dispute with Kane.

Violence Really Is the Answer: Many people urge Kane to run away rather than fight, including his pacifist wife, but he stands his ground, and his wife forsakes pacifism to save his life.

TV Tropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from thestaff@tvtropes.org. Privacy Policy